PSX Tracker guide

Google Drive backup and restore

Google Drive sync lets a portfolio follow you across devices using files your Google account owns. Failures happen — networks drop, tokens expire, two devices edit at once. Knowing Retry, Restore and download options turns a scary banner into a controlled recovery.

By PSX Tracker · Updated 16 October 2026 · How our guides are prepared

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What Drive sync actually stores

Successful sync writes portfolio snapshot and settings-style data into Drive-managed files for this app. A Sheets export, when you use it, is a derived transaction view — useful, but not a substitute for understanding snapshot sync.

Your Google account remains the owner of those files. Disconnecting or revoking access has consequences; read the in-app and Privacy explanations before you change permissions.

Pending local changes

If an upload fails, PSX Tracker can keep a pending local copy so your latest edits are not silently discarded. The sidebar sync footer surfaces status, a short error, and actions.

Do not keep trading on two devices with conflicting pending states without deciding which book should win.

Retry versus Restore

Retry attempts to push the pending local snapshot again — the usual first move after a temporary network error.

Restore is stronger medicine: it preserves a recovery copy of unsynced work, then reloads the cloud version. Confirm before you restore if you might overwrite newer local trades.

When in doubt, download pending JSON first so you have a file offline.

Download / keep pending

Use download or keep-pending style actions to save unsynced data before you accept cloud state. That file is your seatbelt.

After a clean sync, open the other device and confirm it shows the same holdings before you enter new trades there.

This guide is educational and describes how PSX Tracker works. It is not investment, tax or legal advice. Confirm rules and figures with your broker, FBR guidance and professional advisors.

What is in the snapshot, and what is not

The Drive file is your portfolio: portfolios, transactions, settings the app chooses to save, and a small cache of panel text so screens can paint while they refresh. It is not a copy of the entire market. Price history is large and stays out of the backup on purpose, so the file you own does not grow without a limit.

A very large pasted statement can also stay on the device only. The backup has a size cap per entry so one import cannot crowd out the transactions. If something you expected is missing after a restore, check whether it was a market cache or an oversized paste rather than a trade.

API keys you typed into the app, including a Gemini key, can ride along in the settings. Treat the Drive file as private. Do not drop it in a shared folder or email it to yourself on a work account you do not control.

Pending saves and the revision you think you have

The app saves on a short delay so typing does not upload every keystroke. If you go offline in that window, the change waits on the device. The next successful save should send that waiting copy if the Drive revision is still the one you started from.

If another device saved in the meantime, you have a conflict, not a silent overwrite. The message is that a newer version exists. Read it. Do not mash restore until you have downloaded the copy you are afraid of losing. A restore that replaces the cloud file with an older one will drop the trades that other device added.

The practical habit is one writer at a time for a big edit. Phone and laptop can both read. Simultaneous entry is how two deposits become one, or how a sell on the phone disappears under a laptop that was open all afternoon.

Download before you restore

Restore means “make this file the current one.” It is the right tool when you know the cloud copy is the good copy and the device is wrong. It is the wrong tool when you are unsure. Download the JSON first, open it enough to see that the transactions are there, and keep that file somewhere outside the app.

The app also keeps a limited run of older committed versions and tries to bin the older ones. That history is a courtesy, not an archive policy you should bet a decade of trades on. Your own exported file, named with the date, is the archive.

After a restore, check three numbers before you relax: the number of transactions, the cash balance, and one recent trade you remember. If any of the three is wrong, stop and use the file you downloaded. Do not enter new trades on top of a bad restore.

Signing in is not the same thing as Drive access

You can sign in with Google or with email and a password. Drive access is a separate permission. Password login can reopen a portfolio on another device only when remembered Drive access is still connected and still approved by Google. If you revoke the app in your Google Account, the remembered credential stops working, which is what you want.

Signing out clears the session on that device. It does not delete the Drive file. Deleting the app’s file in Drive is a separate, deliberate act. Read the privacy page before you do it, and export first.

Shared family computers need the same care as a shared spreadsheet. Sign out when you stand up. The backup is only as private as the Google account it sits in.

When the backup and the broker disagree

Drive is a copy of what you entered, not a copy of the broker. If the broker shows 1,000 shares and the restored file shows 800, the broker and the contract notes are the source. The file is wrong, or the broker is showing a corporate action you never recorded. Fix the ledger. Do not “fix” the broker to match an old JSON.

Use the export-and-reconcile guide for the line-by-line check. Use this guide for the mechanics of saving and restoring. They solve different failures, and doing a restore in the middle of a reconcile can destroy the comparison you were about to make.

If a save fails repeatedly, download the pending copy and keep trading records in a spreadsheet until the upload works. A week of unsent trades is recoverable. A week of unsent trades that you then overwrite with last month’s file is not.

Common questions

Where is my portfolio stored?

On this device, and in your own Google Drive when you connect backup. PSX Tracker does not keep the portfolio snapshot as the source of truth in its database.

What if a save fails?

A pending copy can stay on the device. Use Retry when you are ready, or download the unsynced JSON before you restore an older Drive file over it.

Does Drive backup include everything?

It includes the portfolio snapshot and settings the app saves. Market-data caches and a very large statement scan stay local so the backup does not swell.

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